Change the Way I Dress?! No, Change the Way you Think!

It was just one of those routine arguments I tend to frequently have with my parents. This time, it was about my clothes. Somehow, my ‘normal’ clothes including shorts, cut offs, strappy tees, spaghettis, and off shoulders seems offensive to my parents. They feel I’m inviting perverts to wrong me and disgrace my name or whatever they were saying which certainly means I’d just be eve teased, raped, or molested. Putting forth my revolutionary views and some high spirited statements inspired from Slutwalks around the nation, I just walked away, being relatively covered today so as to avoid any further confrontation or conflict.

After attending a musical programme as I was regularly walking and talking on my cellphone through one of the busy areas of my city, two unsuspecting guys riding on a bike sped towards me, touched my breasts in broad daylight and rode away, their faces brimming with false pride and perverse satisfaction. Disgusted, and appalled as I was, all I could do was helplessly hurl abuses and curses at those scoundrels. All of this, when I’m dressed in a fully fledged jeans, a sleeved tee with zero show of cleavage and zero levels of transparency and an appropriate length enough to cover my waist, something I would usually wear.

There are thousands of girls everyday who fall prey to such #@**+!!@#%$#%$@^%^$& and never complain or retaliate, thinking that this is how the world works, this is how guys are programmed and this is how they’re destined to live. Maybe some of them would think there’s something wrong with their clothes, behaviour or their body language, or they’re probably wearing too much makeup that attracts such f****** and make them do such monstrosities.

And well, as far as the guys and the perpetrators of these tacky things are concerned, they would be beaming with pride and would go around bragging about how they teased a girl and all she could do was get shocked and freeze. They would call up girls randomly and irritate and harass the hell out of them and be hysterically joyous about how they’ve been teasing a girl on the phone all day long. Worse, they would defame their own friends from the fairer sex of ludicrous things, obviously adding their own set of perverse fantasies to be cool enough and indulge in an indeed vindictive and destructive form of character assassination.

Or maybe, make a girl fall in love with them, get laid with her and use her as much as they can, while making those fake good for nothing promises and that ‘I’m so seriously in love with you’ drama and abandoning the poor girl one day labeling her as ‘characterless’. The poor girl ends up thinking she’s a whore, while pledging to never trust another guy again. Period!

There’s this intensely nauseating feeling of anguish, abhorrence and disgust that I have against the aforementioned. And sadly, there’s little I can do about it. ‘Cause the apathy and stigma dominates the desire to stand up and raise your voice against such injustice. There are so many questions arising out of stereotypes no one wants to answer. For some, it’s a question of their ego, while for some, the urge to comply with the double standard dogmas of society come to charge.

Why is a woman tortured and blamed when she’s raped or subjected to any kind of sexual abuse or molestation? What instigates a man to sexually harass a fully covered woman when everyone says it’s a question of provocative dressing? What right does any f****** person has to judge our characters by the way we dress up? Why does looking beautiful, sexy and attractive amount to a curse for a woman? If it was all about the clothing and skin show, why are women in burqas and amply covered ethnic outfits subjected to maximum cases of sexual abuse? It’s not about our clothing; it’s about the exceedingly perverse, cheap, chauvinistic and degraded mindsets of men today.

What most of us fail to understand is that rape is not merely an act of perversion; it’s actually an act of subjugation. People belonging to higher castes in rural areas would rape women from the lower sections of society if they’re uplifting themselves or raising their voice against any kind of injustice or inequality. Rape is an ugly form of vengeance, suppression and a mere tool to make a woman realize she’s the weaker sex who deserves to by enslaved and victimized for eternity. It’s one sure fire way to make an independent, self reliant, persevering, and innocent woman to lose her self confidence, faith, and happiness for her entire life, and leave her to be persecuted by the stigmas and obsolete doctrines of society.

Rape is not just a sexual crime, it’s a social crime. Simply because after a woman is raped, she supposedly loses her purity even if the sin is committed by a man. Because when a woman is raped, she is blamed for being raped. She is punished for being herself, she’s punished for expressing herself, for being confident enough to make a place for herself in a male dominated world, or in maximum cases, she’s punished for saying no to a savage who wants to have sex with her. And who would complain against any form of sexual abuse when the very judiciary offends a woman in the most loathsome ways possible? When everything she does in her life becomes a reason for her being raped according to the outdated, degraded beliefs of people? When in the eyes of a man, a woman is nothing but a sex object?

My point here is why should we be stereotyped and judged for our lifestyles and our individualities? Which tradition in our culture, which hypothesis in our society says that any particular category of activity or lifestyle gives a man the freedom to sexually abuse a woman? Which law in the constitution states that a woman who wears skimpy outfits, feels free to express herself, consumes alcohol, smokes or goes to late night parties, or work during the wee hours deserves to get raped? Who gets a license to act fresh with a girl who flirts around or has a lot of boyfriends? And why aren’t those men questioned who have multiple sexual partners and who keep fooling around with women and duping them all the time? Shouldn’t they be raped too?

Many of you readers must have been shocked to read the earlier part of my article, which clearly describes how a man touched my breasts. It is explicit. But that’s the way it is. Bitter realities as these shouldn’t be sugar coated in any way. And I’m not ashamed that this happened with me. Because I haven’t done anything wrong. Instead, I have been wronged. And if anyone wants to judge me for my courage and honesty and the fact that I raised up an important issue that probably every young woman in this country is facing, then be it! I’m proud to be judged and thought wrongly about. And the only person who deserves to be ashamed is the one who wronged me. I am a new age young woman and I’m not afraid to fight for my rights and raise my voice against any kind of injustice.

I am not responsible for any wrong that happens to me and neither will I blame myself for any injustice I face no matter how much the society curses me. I deserve to look good and live my life the way I want to whether it’s partying or drinking or wearing an outfit of my choice. I deserve to live with my head held high and my mind without fear even if I have been wronged. And if this is why everyone hates me, I’m lovin’ it!!